


Light Without Shadows

by Skeren



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Human Experimentation, Kid Fic, Long Lost/Secret Relatives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 19:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6091444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeren/pseuds/Skeren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sephiroth was Lucretia's son. Vincent happened to have custody of Lucretia's son.</p><p>Of course, only Hojo knew that these two people were not one and the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Misleading

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in November and December of 2006.

Valentine was so very outraged over the plans being made with Lucretia's pregnancy. He was quite focused, and it was fortunate that he wasn't yelling. Without the need to quiet him, Hojo, ever courteous, patiently sat and listened as the man railed. 

He never wanted it said that he'd never given the man anything. Clearly, he had. He'd let him go on and on about how morals should be placed above science, and how innocent lives shouldn't be ruined in the face of science. He made it sound like science was some sort of unimportant factor, far below the culmination of blood vessels and electronic bursts that constituted a fetus.

If he hadn't been so focused on finding a way to use the outburst to his advantage, he might have been annoyed. Violently so. As it stood, he much preferred using resources to their fullest… life. 

To redirect his thoughts away from something more immediately gratifying, he made a steeple of his fingers and rested them against his lips. "You want me to simply stop? Now? Do you have any idea how foolish the very idea is?"

"It isn't foolish, if you had any-"

Hojo shook his head and waved the man to a stop before he could once again gain momentum. "You misunderstand me. Now that it's been begun I cannot simply stop. You realize it would kill one, if not both?"

This time the man came to a full halt before even getting his mouth open, eyes wide and stunned in the manner of someone who had just been shot. There was satisfaction in patience, and seeing such a look was merely one instance of it. "What?"

"Yes, the fetus has been processing and using the treatments. This has made Lucretia dependent to an extent, and a sudden cease would very likely have highly damaging results at this stage of the pregnancy." 

"I don't believe you." Fists clenching, it was more than simplicity to see the impotent rage building in the man's frame. He wasn't a scientist, so he had no grounds on which to stand and argue, though clearly that did not mean he would not try. 

Being in this position never got old. "I'm certain you don't. However, in a show of faith, between friends, when the child is born, I will not start any additional experiments. I'm sure Lucretia will understand your concern, but you can at least wait until then before getting more upset, can't you?"

He watched the other man's mouth work a bit before he ended up locking his jaw. "Of course. Would I be permitted to look with my own eyes?"

Hojo leaned back in his seat, and he gave the man a smile, acting as though he were granting a favor instead of the man's question being exactly what he had wanted. "In this instance, I will allow it. _After_ I have established the health of the infant. I cannot be derelict just to satisfy you about my intentions, now can I? Oh yes, you will also not be attending the delivery, no matter how loyal of a little guard dog you just so happen to be."

By now, the crimson eyed man had been reduced to gritting his teeth. Hojo could only smile wider at the struggle it clearly was for Valentine to get the words out. "Of course. Thank you."

"You're very welcome. Now, if you're finished, I have other tasks that need my attention."

Body tense and stride stiff, the other man left the room, closing the door behind him too gently to be anything other than care taken not to slam it.

Smiling to himself, Hojo took out the file in his top drawer and studied the papers. Twins. He would be very careful to ensure both survived, and if all worked out to plan, he would have a steady control by which to gauge the improvements of his project. It would also ensure that there would be a replacement if he made any unfixable mistakes with his active specimen.


	2. Arrangements

Hojo had been unnaturally silent after he had called for him. That alone let Vincent know that there was some kind of catch involved with the summons. There always was when things were so sedate between them. 

He hadn't really been expecting the other man to be cradling the small infant in his arm when he arrived. It was far too soon for Lucretia to have had the baby, and yet he knew no other reason why he would have been called in to see one. There was the child, and he knew it had to be Lucretia's child. 

Hojo was using his other hand to sign something off that was lying on his desk.

While the man took care of the paperwork, birth papers perhaps, Vincent let his mind drift a little in a small swell of happiness. He had not failed her. He had not failed the child. That Hojo was even giving him this chance meant that the man had at least considered what he'd been told, and decided to carry through on his promise. He had not really expected him to because he didn't trust Hojo. Still, Lucretia must have understood, and her support might have swayed the balance.

Things were going to be fine. This was a happy occasion. The baby was safe. He'd made a difference for his love.

Of course, then Hojo opened his mouth and the entire moment turned painful. 

"Lucretia is dead."

"What?" 

"Dead. She died before the child was born and I had to do an emergency cesarean to keep from losing them both." He moved closer, showing the young child, still wrinkly from being inside its mother, to his horrified and wonder-stricken eyes. "I can't keep this child myself if I'm going to continue my work. I am not that generous Valentine. Either the child will be part of my work or I will have him elsewhere."

Stunned by the words, his eyes went slightly wide in shock as he took the bundle that was practically shoved into his arms, his aching heart sinking into his stomach. "What are you saying?" He couldn't mean to put the boy up for adoption after all this, could he?

"I'm giving you a chance to take him off my hands, Valentine. Take the offer or leave it, I'm sure I could find someone else. Of course, there's always the option where I could simply pretend our agreement never happened in the first place." 

They were cold words, the kind that riled his instincts and spurred him to hold the child close protectively. He hadn't triumphed as he believed, but this small bit of Lucretia he could still protect. "No. No, I'll take him. I can take him. Did you give him a name?"

"No." Hojo shook his head and showed the partially blank birth certificate, his other hand indicating the custodial papers. These two sets of pressed paper quickly got his attention, and he realized they must have been what he'd been filling out as he entered the room. "Do you have a name you want to give him? I'm sure I could come up with something appropriate if you don't."

"I… Yes. My father's name was Grimiore. Grimiore Valentine."

"The man Lucretia was formerly assistant to?" The just slightly too thin hand paused, and Hojo gave him a yet deeper appraising look before he leaned to fill in the gaps that had been left for the child's name. "Grimiore Valentine it is."

He hadn't believed the man would give the entire name… but he wasn't about to spit on the kindness. "Where do I need to sign?"

"You don't get full rights to him."

He paused halfway to reaching for the pen and met the man's black eyes, realizing he'd really expected no less. There was something he wasn't being told, but it was unfortunately not his place to be aware of whatever it happened to be. "I know."

"Good." The man started to point out the various pages, barely giving him time to sign, let alone read. He'd find out what he had just signed up for later, just so long as he was really getting a chance to give Lucretia's son a real home.

He was so focused on not failing to mark a line that he entirely missed Hojo's pleased smile.

* * *

He finally made his way back to the smaller of the two infants once as all the paperwork was done, Valentine being far too anxious over the sudden addition to his household to question beyond the fact that it existed. That meant that this one was all his to deal with, and no meddling fool was going to come try to take him away. 

Smoothing downy hair away from the child's face, he ignored the barely audible whimpers, instead focusing on collecting some carefully modified formula to feed the boy with.

"Hush Sephiroth, you need to get used to being separated now, because you aren't going to see the control again for a very long time."

There was a soft sound, clearly unhappy, but he stopped fussing enough to accept the bottle, proving he was not entirely without comprehension even at so young an age. He didn't try to hide his face either, teary newborn blue staring up towards his face instead of staying closed as was more typical of a child less than a day old.

He was going to make such a fine project once he finally understood what was going on around him. 

But… that was all in good time.


	3. Noises

He had his feet tucked under him as he watched his father assemble a gun, and he was leaning forward with obvious curiosity. Once he spotted the interest, the black haired man made sure to show him how all the pieces went together. It was interesting, like a moving puzzle. 

Even as interesting as it was, he kept getting distracted though. Something else like a puzzle going on, something he couldn't quite put his finger on, and that annoyed him more than anything ever could. There was a high pitched buzz in the apartment, not quite like the sound a computer made when it was on, closer to a TV, but not. He'd already checked the TV and it was off. The radio was unplugged.

Just to be sure, he waited until his father finished showing him how the gun parts went together, then slid off the seat to his bare feet on the floor, head tilted as he went to unplug the TV so that all the electronic things were off. Well, not the lights or the refrigerator, but they didn't sound like this did. Their buzz was lower, or duller, than this was. This was the high buzz of entertainment machines, but he'd just made sure all of them were unplugged, so just how was it…

"Grimiore?" His father had a nice voice, he really did, but he didn't need to bug him when he was so obviously _doing something_ , did he?

"I hear something." His own reply was a whisper, and he tilted his head the other way, padding off towards the general direction of the sound was in. "You can't hear it too?"

At least his father had gotten the hint and had hushed. He was following him though, perfectly serious like he did sometimes. There were people who thought he was faking when he heard things, but it wasn't like all this stuff didn't make _noise_. "No, I can't. What does it sound like?"

"Really high. The almost, not quite, training whistle high. Only crackly, you know, the sound I say the TV makes when it's on but not _on_?" He gestured slightly to make sure he was being understood, and nodded back more vigorously after he got a solemn nod out of his parent. "Yeah, like that. Only quiet. I heard it while I was going back and forth, and didn't notice, but now it's really really bugging me."

Father didn't say anything back, and that was fine, because he'd figured out where the noise was coming from and was a bit busy crawling under some furniture. At the end of the search, there was a tiny black thing that he was completely sure was the source of the noise. He could hear his father moving things so it would be easier for him to get out. "Did you find something?"

"I don't know what it is." It looked like some kind of little microphone meshed with a tiny headphone, but that made no sense. Thus, he decided to crawl back out and offer it to his Father. He'd know what to do with it.

He didn't really expect the thing to get a narrowed eyed and almost _angry_ expression though. "Grimiore, could you do me a favor and walk around the apartment? If you hear any more things that sound like this, please bring them to me."

Okay, Father apparently wasn't mad at _him_ , so that meant that someone else had done something very stupid. "Okay. What is it?"

"It seems, my child, that we have an infestation of bugs."

* * *

The assistant had enough time, between the statement and the grating blast of static, to get the headphones away from his head that he managed to do it in time to not end up deafened. He clicked off the recorder so that it wouldn't continue to pick up the mangled flat-line where there had just been a perfectly decent signal. Once he noted down the point in time it seemed that the child had discovered the spying device, he went to go talk to the head doctor.

"Doctor Hojo, sir?"

"Do you need something?"

"Ah… the naturalization project found the monitoring devices."

"Really? Why are you still here then? Make sure to note the time it takes from finding one until he finds another. I'll listen to the voice file when I finish up here."

"Of course." He nodded, then turned to go, skillfully ignoring the whimper that tended to classify a mako test as it floated after him down the hall. He left the Doctor to his work.


	4. Belief and Memory

There are ways, sometimes, to forget everything that one has ever learned for a little while. It takes focus, dedication, and a strong sense of self. It is also, apparently, more difficult than most would imagine when it is desperately needed by the person trying to achieve that state.

The mind can forget, as can the body. In fact, the mind can override the body in almost any way, and as long as the belief is there, the event will come to pass. This does not, however, work as well when there is no belief. When blind faith is early crushed and the physical demanded as truth… that is when it becomes harder to forget.

Physical teachings are not as forgettable. It takes longer, for instance, to will away a scar, but that does not mean it cannot be done. This, of course, comes back to belief, to faith. If there is a belief in the ability to heal to such an extent, then it _will be_ as the belief would ascribe. 

Of course, this means that if one believes that they will die, then they will die. 

Just as if they believes that they will not, honestly, deeply, believes it, then they will not. This includes believing that fate will not show her mercy to allow for the quiet of death. This includes being forced to suffer a long, enduring lifetime. But, in the end, belief is truly what keeps one animated when that life has not been put in the hands of others, and even then, there is only so far that technology has come.

Emotion has little to do with the process of forgetting. Particular emotions may play a part in any range of memories, frustration, pain, relief, but they are not the memory themselves. An emotional response will not bring on a cascade. An item, however, is not the same. The smell of an apple may bring about mixed feelings, and then, _then_ , that in turn will surface the feelings and create the memory, but the feelings alone do nothing of the kind. 

He wished, at times, that he could shutter away his sense of smell as easily as he had learned to closet his emotions. He wished with burning depth and need, that he could force his senses to a standstill, a moment without registering anything. He wished for many things, small things, quiet mercies. 

He also did not believe in them. He could silence his mind, rest without sleeping, and he often did. It was harder when he had injuries, but he believed that they would heal quickly, and so they did, just as they always had. He believed that he would recover from tests, that he would not lose himself to whispers both many and none when dealing with mako, so he did, but he did not believe he could ever escape from that life.

He also could not bear to forget, no matter how deeply and truly he wished himself capable, that he could let it go. He knew there were secrets being kept from him, there always were. He wished and dreamed and craved… but in the end it really, truly, was nothing.

He was missing something, he knew that and he dared never mention it. He could watch the faces of scientists as they took readings without expression, and without uttering a sound in the face of the burning fire under his skin from mako or something else. He could even ignore the pain as though it was not there…

But there was no ignoring the changes that were wrought. There was no belief that they would not continue to happen, just as there was no filling that unnamed emptiness.

So when the time came for him to hear of the war, to be sent there, he was relieved. He was also unable to forget. He still longed for that forgetting because he had no faith, no faith at all, that he would not be returning, ultimately, to everything he had ever known before he was given a chance to make a nation bleed.

They were not the one who hurt him, but they were the ones who would feel his disillusionment. There was truly no other alternative for him, and perhaps, if he had believed in mercy, he might too have believed in being able to die.

But, since he did not…

Since he did not, he became known as a Demon. The Demon of Wutai.


End file.
